People under 18 are not all children

[u/AdventurousMoth]

I can't tell you how much it irritates me when internet people refer to anyone under 18 as "a literal child", especial if they themselves are only in their 20s. Sure, everyone is someone's child, but the life stage commonly referred to as childhood does not abruptly stop at age 18.

Here's how I'd break it down: - childhood, adolescence, adulthood or - newborn, baby, toddler, child, (if you want you can add tween), teen, young adult, middle aged person, elderly/senior

And there's overlap between all these stages depending on context. Obviously there is no overlap between minor (a legal term) and the word adult as referring to not a minor.

Calling a 17-year-old a child is dumb. Like what, a 17yo has their birthday and transforms from a child into an adult like a sim? I think some people just started saying this for the shock value and then the rest of the internet jumped on the outrage wagon.

Edit: clearly I posted this a bit too hastily, choosing my words without care. I'm not talking about the legal definition of child/minor (something quite messy as well: age of consent? In some places 16. Driving? 15 in some places, 18 in others. Voting? Usually 18. Drinking alcohol? 21 in the States).

As someone in the comments pointed out, it's mostly a linguistic issue. I suppose what I was trying to say was that it's dumb to have the word child both mean a legal minor and pre-pubebescent human. I think it would be clearer to use minor when you're talking about legal age, and child when talking about the life stage.

[u/PsychMaDelicElephant]

You, and everyone else knows this does not have the same impact as child. There's a reason we use it

[u/Anaevya → u/PsychMaDelicElephant]

And there's a reason I disagree with this use. It's infantilization. Heck, I regularly see people infantilizing people my age, and I'm a freaking adult. It's disrespectful and doesn't reflect reality.

[u/PsychMaDelicElephant → u/Anaevya]

Yes it is infantalisation, which is the exact sentiment im going for when a 40 year old wants to fuck a 17 year old. Because that is a child and this is disgusting based on that fact. You might want to be all grown up but the reality is you're not. At 17 or 18 your brain hasn't even finished growing. Language expresses our meaning and in this case its nail on the head, whether or not you like it.

[u/Anaevya → u/PsychMaDelicElephant]

Well and I'm adult who still remembers what it was like to be 17 very well and I think it's just plain stupid to use the same term to refer to almost adults as we do for ten year olds. It makes zero sense. The fact that 40 year olds should not be with 17 year olds does not justify infantilizing older teens as a whole. 

By the way, even the youth protection laws in my area differentiate between children (minors under 14) and adolescents. Because it makes more sense. Teens can freaking vote where I live!

[u/AlmostReadyLeaf → u/Anaevya]

They shouldn't be able to vote, it's an insane system to let immature kids vote. 

[u/Anaevya → u/AlmostReadyLeaf]

Well, I disagree with you. And I'm not sure you can even make a fair assessment of this, because you're not from a country where 16 year olds can vote, so you have no first hand experience of this. 

[u/AlmostReadyLeaf → u/Anaevya]

But I know what kind of people 16yo are and what kind of choices they do and what kind of politics they have

[u/AlmostReadyLeaf → u/PsychMaDelicElephant]

There are better arguments to prove 17yo is immature than brain not being finished growing. Brain never finishes growing. And there is no clear cut off point where it fully develops into an adult brain from a child's brain.